The Ultimate Website Checklist for

Better User Experience and Search Rankings

Our comprehensive, 2-in-1 Checklist - Website Must Have's and
Google UX Fundamentals - offers step-by-step website updates to
give your customers the best user experience, while protecting
your SEO from Google's Core Web Vitals Update.

Need Help? Contact Whereoware

Leading digital agency for 20+ years, Whereoware drives smart
growth through digital marketing strategy and activation. Contact
Whereoware to kickstart a smart digital strategy to achieve your
customer acquisition, retention, and maximization goals:
[email protected]
 WEBSITE MUST-HAVES

For A Better Customer Experience

A Better Website Experience Keeps Customers Coming Back For More

Create Immersive Online Experiences: Use High Impact Visuals

Choose high resolution lifestyle or product imagery and videos

Show alternative and to-scale images

Add prominent and easy-to-click calls-to-action

Add interactive functionality – pinch-to-zoom, dynamic images on hover

Extend the immersive experience across email, social, and advertising

Make It Easy To Find Products/Information: Navigation and Search

Limit navigation headers to under 7

Choose relevant categories for your products or services

Use keywords and your audience’s language

Combine categories and filters for deeper search

Use predictive search to help supply answers

Clearly display contact information, FAQs, returns, and customer service information

Highlight retailer/dealer partners (bonus for search by location or turn-by-turn directions)

Never Stop Optimizing: Track, Test, and Experiment

Set up Google Analytics tracking code

BUT, THAT’S NOT ALL:
Continuously improve technical and on-page SEO

Use tools to measure where customers click, have friction, or drop off Your website needs to be mobile-
friendly, full of engaging content,
Combine online and offline data for the complete picture and deliver a great page
Monitor most/least popular webpages, categories, or products experience.
Jump to our Google Page
Run AB tests to validate assumptions and increase conversions
Experience Checklist for better
Benchmark performance and measure improvement UX and SEO.

Ensure designs meet accessibility standards

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Empower Your Team: Choose the Right Website Platform

Look for a website platform that has:

Simple content management (CMS)

Mobile-friendliness

Scalability and security

Highly individualized product recommendations and search tools

Convenient self-service tools

Makes experimentation easy

Leverage artificial intelligence

Bonus: easy audience segmentation and dynamic content to deliver personalized content

Choose the Right Website Agency

Ask the Agency:

What are your developer specializations?

Can you provide examples or references?

Are you a system implementor or do you provide strategy and campaign services (email, SEO, PPC)?​

How do you handle scope- or budget-creep?

What other vendors do you work with?

Who will handle ongoing maintenance or issues?

What ongoing support do you offer?

What is your communication strategy throughout the project?

Talk to a Digital Expert

to Improve Your Website and Marketing Strategy
[email protected]

www.whereoware.com
How Will Google Rank Your Page Experience?
STRONG CONTENT is still the center of your SEO strategy, but User Experience (UX) is critical too.

LOADING
Largest Contentful Paint - LCP

CORE WEB INTERACTIVITY

VITALS First Input Delay - FID

VISUAL STABILITY
Cumulative Layout Shift - CLS SEARCH
SIGNALS
FOR PAGE
MOBILE FRIENDLY EXPERIENCE

SAFE BROWSING
OTHER WEB
VITALS
HTTPS

NO INTRUSIVE INTERSTITIALS

WEBPAGE LOADING: LARGEST CONTENTFUL PAINT

Is the largest file or element within the viewport loading quickly (in fewer than 2.5 seconds)?

Compress and cache images and video, without impacting quality

Lazy load images(IE. above-the-fold images load first or images only load within the viewport)

Optimize background scripts and eliminated third party plug ins

Implement mobile-first best practices

Use Web hosted fonts (Google or Adobe) – no more than 7 typefaces

Use your website’s Global Styles

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WEBPAGE INTERACTIVITY: FIRST INPUT DELAY

Is the browser reacting quickly to a user’s input (IE. click or tap) - within 100 milliseconds?

Create a clear layout, with well-defined and unobstructed clickable elements

Optimize and eliminate unnecessary JavaScript

Use visual indicators to acknowledge inputs (IE. Loading icon or looping animation)

Configure all styling and programming files to cache

Ensure web servers compress content before sending to the browser

WEBPAGE JUMPINESS: CUMULATIVE LAYOUT SHIFT

Are ads or other loading elements causing unexpected layout shifts?

Optimize element and file load time

Eliminate or optimize ads

Specify image width and height in the CSS

Align elements to adapt to potential layout shifts due to responsiveness

Master Existing Search Signals

CREATE GREAT CONTENT

Is your content the most credible, authoritative, and complete webpage to answer this search query?

Create informative content, addressing customers’ top concerns/questions (Think EAT)

Add keywords to page titles, URLs, and descriptions for every page

Add Alt Text to all of your images

Get content shares or linkbacks from relevant high-quality websites

Garner trust through reviews, testimonials, or awards/certifications

Ensure your privacy and return policy, and other terms are easily accessible?

Link internally to other relevant content

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MOBILE-FRIENDLY AND INTRUSIVE INTERSTITIALS

Are mobile users receiving an effective, and interactive experience from every device?

Concise, streamlined navigation or hamburger menu

Plentiful white space, padding, and color indicators

Buttons large enough for finger tapping

Optimize swiping and gesturing functionality, or enable location services

Image alt attributes and Robots meta tags

Interstitials or popovers take up less than 15% of the page

Easy to close interstitials (particularly from mobile), time optimized to appear and disappear

SAFE BROWSING / HTTPS

Is your website safe, trustworthy, and secure?

Free of malware, social engineering, unwanted software, or deceptive content

Deemed safe by Google’s Site Status diagnostic tool:

transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search

Protecting the integrity and confidentiality of data through HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure)

Talk to a Digital Expert to Improve

Your Website’s SEO and UX

[email protected]

www.whereoware.com